SATIRE | ADVICE
How I Got Rich By Writing on Medium
Seriously Wealthy — And You Can Too
So we writers were sitting around the warmth of the virtual yule log, and discussing our paychecks from Medium. Those sitting around the fire include folks from all over the planet.
Comments around this imaginary warmed over conference table include…
What’s the new MPP pay date?
Pay day depends on your bank, but maybe the 10th of the month?
I’m getting ready to spend my $10 at the coffee shop.
I don’t know how I’ll get through the month without my Medium money.
Spend every penny carefully.
Personally, I hit a new record high last month — I broke $100 for the first time.
I know there are tons of people who would advise you —
don’t worry about the money, just keep writing.
That’s easy to say to others when you might have a financial partner, a live in boyfriend, stay in your parents’ basement, have no children, or mortgage, or car payments.
Or even if you have a little money in a savings account.
Many writers have responsibilities, and earn precious pennies.
Let’s break this down.
I spent at least 4 hours a day, daily, over 30 days, to earn that $100.
120 hours, minimum. That’s 83 cents an hour. I’m being generous. I spent more than 4 hours some days.
But that’s still a whole lot more than the .14 per hour some other writers earned last month.
It’s said that one third of the world lives on less than $2.00 a day. So that puts me ahead of the world average with my Medium earnings. Encouraging me to keep writing! Others aren’t quite there yet. They just haven’t put in the hours that it takes to make it to this above worldwide standard.
Everything is relative. I have other ways to seriously pay the bills. I am a glorified chambermaid. I clean houses and manage customer expectations using the AirBnB platform. Another one of those jobs that, if I calculate what I actually earn per hour, is less than minimum wage.
Why am I feeling so wealthy when the truth is, being a contract worker, or worse — a worker with absolutely NO CONTRACT , no benefits or protections — yields such pitiful monetary results?
The truth is that I’m doing a thing I love. I get to smile and laugh, and be creative. I get to choose to spend the best hours of my days in the company of these brilliant minds — the writers here on Medium. It’s like coming home to family, any time I turn to the computer. Being in this psychical space where we all share and explore our ideas, create new worlds and deconstruct old ones, is a ton of fun for me. It’s that game that just keeps on being played.
Sure, I have a hard life, and am living a life in poverty. But don’t we all have to choose at some point? To be happy while maybe simultaneously poor?
Okay, I’ll admit this too — if overnight I was gifted a cool million, I would be happy to deal with that problem. And truth be told, I will not come out of semi-retirement and back into corporate life for anything less than that. I am way too wealthy here, working on Medium articles, at 83 cents an hour.
It’s all about where you focus. When I was the primary caregiver, for three long years, for my dear grandmother with Alzheimer’s, my Nana, the Ph.D. child psychologist who in my youth gifted me tools in neuroplasticity brain rewiring before it was even a thing with a name — I had a choice of where to focus. I could focus on those things that made me insane — things like having to repeat myself over and over again until I developed nodules on my vocal chords. Things like not having my own time for myself, because I was a 24x7 caretaker.
Or I could choose to focus on those things that kept me sane — like how much I loved her, and why I did everything I did in my life for her. Just as she had done for me. In our game of life, she was all in. And so was I.
It’s all about where you focus.
And having that choice, that freedom, and exercising it, my dear friends, feels like true wealth to me.
A few of my favorite books on the topic of economics and the games we choose to play.
Susan Brearley is a brilliant strategist and writer/editor. She’s the owner/operator of the MuddyUm Writer’s Self Help Clinic. And the Captain of the Good Ship MuddyUm.
She’s been writing comedy for about 2 weeks.
